#bioanth

[er-cryptid]

Every blue-eyed person shares a common ancestor, as blue eyes are caused by a genetic mutation that occured long ago.

#studyblr #notes #my notes #anthropology #anthropology notes #biological anthropology #biological anthropology notes #bioanthropology #bioanthropology notes #bioanthro #bioanth #bio-anthropology #archaeology #archeology #evolution #human evolution #science #biology #bio #evolutionary biology #evolution of humans #early humans #life science #biological science #note cards #flashcards #flash cards

[un-pearable]

its off-topicly scrolling through my camera roll instead of writing time again. i should make more highly specific memes based on anecdotes from my anthropology teachers.

#actual line from my archae prof today: 'im a big believer in paragraphs' #this one's from my bioanth prof who's a primatologist. its funnier w/o context

[treecakes]

everyday i wish i could skip bioarchaeology i just really don’t care. 😭

#there is a reason i don’t touch bioanth or forensics. #this class is just forensics lite. except more history based.

[taeyongruinedcitylights]

what did you major in? stem field? 🤯

HELP actually my major was anthropology which is why that post abt sahelanthropus surprised meeee we talked a lot abt things like that when i was taking classes abt human fossils! but there’s soooo much to cover when the topic is fossil hominids it’s impossible to fit everything in… but yea i was an anth major but we had a human evolution-related track u could persue! so i had classes on human fossil history, osteology, nd evolutionary medicine to name a few favs :) it was really fun and had just a bit more stem than other humanities majors i think!

#bioanth which has bio in the name isnt stem yea ok sure 🙄🙄 #i think we had a lot more normal ppl in the major compared to stem ones LOL bc anth at its base is abt understanding ppl…… #yall should have seen intro med anth sooo many premed students were there ‘bc their advisor told them to’ nd it was rlly obvious #that none of them had ever thought of how healthcare nd society at large actually work 😭😭 #like oh wdym there are things that keep ppl from receiving care……incredible. nd yall r gonna be drs? #BUT i digress. i wanted to take more bio classes actually like i never managed to fit an anatomy class in but i couldnt fit it in…. #then covid at the end of my degree etc etc but im still happy w the classes i took :)

[littlemyinvadeshighbury]

Everyday I'm forced to wake up in a world where Richard Dawkins invented the word meme

#i feel visceral rage when i remember he exists #the selfish gene #richard dawkins #evolutionary biology #anthropology #why did HE get to invent it huh #hes just so lame #this all stems from having to read The Selfish Gene in one of my bioanth courses #and it felt like utter bullshit bc of my brain #my personal hell #meme

[anthroaddict]

So. I did a bioanth degree at Bryn Mawr, and did my dissertation with the assurance of the Mütter collection. And then I went to paleopathology grad school because of the Mütter.

Point being that I have them Anthro creds you were looking for.

When I say that the Mütter and it’s curator do everything they can to make the historic displays more modern with updated terminology that’s incredibly respectful, please know that I mean it. When I say that the same people who are yelling about museum ethics and whatnot in the press are the same ones who have not allowed the curator to remove Einstein’s brain from display nor the soap lady, the two most unethically collected people in the museum, know that I’m always shaking with rage about it.

It’s 100% a complex issue, but the Mütter, the hunterian, and surgeons hall in Edinburgh do it right. They work WITH their residents. They don’t USE them. 🖤😻 hope this helps peanut

Yes I agree, it seems they all really care about the collection as people rather than things. Thanks for your insight!

#anthropology #museum #museum studies #mütter museum

[kyidyl]

I was reading this article and was wondering if you had just...rando boxes of bones that you were taught with. Were they labeled at all? Did you wonder where they came from? This is stemming from an article at MSNBC about a Berkley's professor's hesitation to return Native American remains because basically the bone collection (majority unlabeled) they have is a small percentage of donations and the rest were admittedly stolen.

Congrats, you have secretly unlocked something I have Thoughts (TM) on, lol.

Firstly, if anyone is wondering, here's the article. I actually saw it right before coming to Tumblr when I got up bc someone had posted it in one of the bioanth groups I'm in.

The short answer here is: for undergrad, no, I didn't because most colleges in the US don't have collections of human remains. We just used bone clones. And in grad school yes, I did, but I went to grad school in the UK and we knew where they came from bc we'd (and previous classes) excavated them ourselves from the Poulton churchyard. You can read more about the dig here. The UK obviously is a much different set of circumstances than the US.

Bone collections are not just random assemblages of bones. They're meticulously sorted, labeled, and categorized whenever that is possible. And when the remains are comingled (mixed together), the reason is that we don't know whose bones are whose and we don't want to like....put one person's humerus with another person's femur. Unless the bones are articulated (joined in the position they exist in the skeleton), it's exceedingly difficult to tell which bones go to which individual without a DNA test. DNA tests are difficult to do on historical remains in the post cranial skeleton, they're expensive, and most tribes don't like it when we do them. It isn't feasible for a university to DNA test every one of hundreds of comingled bones, so they leave them together. It's better to have more than one person in a box together than it is to have the wrong parts to an actual, human person stuck together as if they're the same person. That's incredibly disrespectful. And, yes, they're often stored in cardboard but like...it's not because that's what was laying around, it's because it's a good storage method and it's cheap. Like they make special boxes.

Bone collections across the world are a very, very thorny subject. I can tell you that as a student handling human bone was an absolutely vital part of my education and without it I'd have a MUCH harder time sorting human from animal. Bone collections are an important teaching tool, but I also think those skills aren't skills undergrads need to have because most of them aren't going to be digging up human remains.

In the US a lot of bone collections are actually not Native American. A lot of them are, but a good deal of them aren't. Not that they're necessarily more ethically sourced - I'll get to that in a bit - but they're not Native American. But we're talking about Berkley and theirs are NA.

If you read the article (general you to anyone reading this, not you nonny.), it mentioned that when NAGPRA came into effect a few decades ago any institution that takes gov't money - which is basically all of them - was required to disclose and notify the tribes that they had remains. From there it was on the tribes to decide what they wanted to do with them.

And this is where tumblr would say "that's not good enough, just give them back". Thing is guys, some groups don't want them back. I know it sounds wrong, but I want you to know that not every culture is as attached to their ancestor's remains, and they're not just pretending they don't want them bc they're afraid of consequences from colonizers. Let me give you an example. This is an article about a set of remains found in Ethiopia that was excavated by two of my professors in undergrad. The optics of this are: a bunch of white people went to Ethiopia, dug up a skeleton, and took it home to start testing it for stuff. What that surface read doesn't tell you is that those two professors - John Arthur and Kathy Weedman-Arthur - have been working with the local Gamo people for almost 30 years at this point. They have friends there, they speak the language fluently, Dr. Kathy has been spending years helping them create a written version of their language so that they can tell their own stories in their own language to the world. They *want* to do this. And they also don't consider anyone not in their burial forest to be Gamo. It doesn't matter if they clearly are from an outside genetic look, they aren't Gamo if they're not in the forest and they don't care what happens to the remains. And in the US, some native groups don't care what happens to the mortal remains of their ancestors. You (general) don't get to decide that for them how they feel about it, even if you think it's wrong. And I can tell you 100% if no one cares, scientists are going to keep the remains. There are also often issues with figuring out who to repatriate the remains TO. Colonizers re-burying them with the wrong funeral rites is, IMO, just as bad. Plus the natives like to re-inter them in places that aren't told to outsiders so they can't be retrieved.

But, obviously, the groups dealing with Berkley DO care and so the remains should be repatriated if they are Native American. It's pretty easy to tell if a, you know where they came from bc you dug them up (like Berkley) or b, the markers on the skeleton and the context are Native American. And here's where we come up against another problem: a lot of medical specimens in the US come from grave robbers in India and other Asian countries. It was, for awhile, a huge industry over there. People would sell their relatives remains, or grave rob and sell them to companies that will sell them overseas. There are still ethical complications here, and if anyone tries to sell you "ethically sourced" human remains they're lying *coughjonsbonescough*. It's impossible for an individual in the US to have an ethically sourced set of remains unless those remains were directly gifted to them from the family of the deceased. That definitely happens on the medical or university level - people leave their bodies to science - but not on the individual level. Thing is though that Asians have the same skeletal markers as Native Americans. East Asians, South Asians, doesn't matter. I'm using the generalized Asia on purpose. You will find shovel incisors or extra cranial sutures on the vast majority of Asians and Native Americans bc they're related. So if you've got a collection of bones of uncertain origin it's impossible to tell the source without DNA tests, and even if you did those tests it would be impossible to repatriate the Asian ones bc Asia is huge.

But again, that's not the case with Berkley. They know that most of those bones were excavated and that professor doesn't want to give them back. I can tell you know he's going to lose that fight. Because a, the article says they've removed him as the liaison and person responsible for the bones and b, Kennewick man. There is now legal, genetic precedent for remains in a given area to be directly related to the natives living in that area. So I'm like 99% sure Berkley will be giving up all of the bones that they know are Native American. And the vast majority of archaeologists and anthropologists agree with the repatriation of those remains. A lot of people have native remains that were grandfathered in for one reason or another, and they still don't keep them because it's more than clear that a good relationship with the natives leads to us doing better science.

Some people feel that bone collections are unethical in and of themselves, but I disagree. I think that, especially in places like Europe where the remains are more likely to belong to the community they exist in, there are ethical ways to build bone collections. The truth of it is that there's orders of magnitude more dead people than live ones, and if the community doesn't care, why NOT use them for education? Honestly I'd like to be donated to science and I'd be sad if my bones *weren't* used to teach other students to do the thing I love. Like that seems like an awesome use of something that would otherwise go to waste. Human remains are only as holy as the culture they belong to believes they are. Otherwise, they're biological material same as any other animal.

Anyway yeah...hope that gave you more of an insight into what's going on there, and I love answering these types of questions, lol.

#anthropology #archaeology #NAGPRA #human remains #bones #bone collecting #bone collections #human bones #native americans #ethics #bio archaeology

[inkofamethyst]

February 27, 2023

IT’S OFFICIAL AHHHHHH THE GRADUATE SCHOOL APPROVED MY ADMISSION IM OFFICIALLY INTO MY CHOICE EEEEEE!!!!!  My potential advisor called me right after class to share the news and and the department chair sent me a cute email and oh boy I just really wish they were bringing me up sooner because I promised myself I wouldn’t make a decision until after I visited and now I can’t do so for a whole ‘nother month (luckily the dates don’t mess with anything else (exams, performances, rehearsals, etc)).  It doesn’t feel fair to my Choice F to string them along like this but I’m going to stick to my guns on this one.  Visiting is a really important component of my decision-making process.  If the vibes are off (and I suspect they won’t be, but I’ve been surprised before), then I ain’t goin.

Also!  The girl I met during my Choice B interview (and who also applied to and interviewed with my Choice C (arguably the best bioanth program in the country, but also I’m very biased), and in both cases we applied to work with the same person) ended up getting into the Choice C (but not my Choice B) program that we applied to which, without going into specific details, means I am likely waitlisted for the program (waitlisted at least.. it’s possible that my acceptance to Choice B precludes me from the Choice C program altogether).  Which means I’m six-for-seven, sort of.  Not a bad record.  Not bad at all.

I started my Star Trek book on a whim just because I wanted to and oh my god Jean-Luc is such a lady’s man.  Women are falling over this balding French dude.  And, you know, maybe I get it.  He’s got this amazing and slightly mysterious past as a renowned captain in starfleet, so he’s disciplined and commanding and good with words and he cares a lot even if he pretends not to.  It’s just so funny to me idk.

Speaking of old/middle-aged men, I’m starting to think that the Pedro Pascal thing is a marketing ploy.  I’m beginning to think that dvcree is an industry plant.  I try very hard to distance myself from marketing, but this feels a little too ridiculous to not be a ploy that’s gotten out of hand.  Is he cute?  ...ya maybe, sure.  That said, I started watching The Last of Us this past weekend while doing my hair, and oh my god????  I don’t really watch zombie stuff and I definitely haven’t played the game, but this show is literally so good.  I also tend not to watch TV-MA stuff from HBO because I’m what I like to call soft-hearted and can’t really handle excessive violence or gore, but this show presents enough action and violence to be exciting without being overzealous with the blood n guts n stuff.  I love Ellie, Joel is fantastic, every single episode rips my heart out, and I can’t get enough.  Episode 5 came out last night but I’ve got two exams tomorrow and a busy day today, so...

To switch gears, just a bit of a hair rant.  Wanted to do 18″ senegalese twists for the next three weeks which I’ve never done before, and they’re not coming out the way I’d hoped.  My feed-in technique is great, but my own hair blown-out is ~18″ in most places, so the ends don’t seal well at all, meaning the twists are coming undone or are generally a lot looser than I’d wanted.  I think passion twists or marley twists would’ve been more forgiving considering their textures, but they’re uh.. they’re a little more uh.. ethnic.. than I was going for, considering that I have a few uni trips coming up.  The only redeeming feature is that these senegalese twists are quick.  Much quicker than knotless braids.  Maybe I should’ve done 24″ to guarantee that seal, but I really like how conservative the 18″ length looks.  While it’s kind of annoying in this particular situation, I honestly like how long my own hair seems to be getting, and my haircare is regularly improving in efficiency (...though one of these days I’m going to have to suck it up and deep condition which I haven’t done in years, opting for just a regular leave-in... so while efficiency is improving, the techniques could still use work).  And I say “long” fully recognizing that shrinkage will make my hair look like it’s a half to a third of its actual length :/  One of these days I’m going to go for a straightening, my first one in... six years, just to see the full length on display.  Maybe for the first days of grad school...

Today I’m thankful for the formal my photo-friend and I went to last night.  They’d run out of real food by the time we arrived, so we gorged ourselves on strawberry shortcake.  We took some photos and I felt thoroughly attractive, even if my hair was less than optimal (my parts are clean and it hangs down so it looks good from afar which is what matters tbh).  

Today I’m also (obvi) thankful for the admit!!  Like,,,,, this kind of thing is something I’ve been reaching for my entire life.  And while I feel partly as though I’ve lucked into it, I’m also so happy that all the work I’ve put into this whole thing is paying off.  I’ll let the imposter syndrome come later.  Right now, I just wanna bask (for a little bit, at least, as I’ve got rehearsals and exams and meetings galore this week).

Well, if I’m honest, I’m looking forward to not writing/ranting about grad apps every entry.  I can feel it, that day is close.

man im so tired.

[irlnikeiyomiuri]

rating the four fields of american anthropology so i have reason to not think abt my bio anth test i literally have up and started in a browser rn.

archaeology - starting out strong and by that i mean i need to get this out of the way. haven’t done anything specific to archaeology, just gotten a little bit into the approach/focus/done some archaeology stuff within the context of other courses. like a 7/10 it seems chill if not my thing! would be willing to dabble in the field again for other work

bio anth - i genuinely hope this concept fucking explodes. maybe one day we’ll get to a point with this subject where i’m not just willing canvas to explode so i don’t have to take this class, but it says a lot that the happiest ive been this quarter was when i found out i didn’t have a weekly lab for bioanth. 2/10 gets a few points for the fact that bio on its own is fine

cultural anth - if only this course had been set up better. content seems engaging and interesting and it seems like a fun subject, but i think i’d die if i went into it. the things which r studied are fun, but not enough to make me enjoy fieldwork and ethnographies. 5/10 because i really really really don’t like fieldwork and ethnographies

linguistic anth - was doing this in alphabetical order but look at that. best for last. this is my favorite this is my child this is my beloved. linguistic anth is like if cultural anth was cool and is also the exact opposite of bio anth (makes me want to explode /pos not /neg). the only subject that my adhd self could sit through weeks and weeks of non stop videos and readings for. 10/10

[er-cryptid]

The hyoid bone is the only bone not attached to another bone.

#studyblr #notes #my notes #anthropology #biological anthropology #bioanthropology #bioanthro #bioanth #bio-anthropology #human biology #human osteology #biology #bio #osteology #osteological analysis #skeletal system #forensics #forensic anthropology #human bones #bones #forensic science #science #bone analysis #human identification #bioarchaeology #bioarcheology #archaeology #archeology #biological science #life science

[un-pearable]

my jay redesign explanation is that he ironically got freckles after he stopped living in the desert bc he used to have a strict sunscreen regimen when he lived with his parents and while his hair has grown in darker + curlier from the bad haircut he got prepilots (and less sun exposure) he went all >:] i can finally stop… i’m finally free!! and realized no one could get on his case for tempting sun damage anymore. cue freckles five seconds later

#ninjago #jay walker #text✨ #extremely mixed feelings on the redesigns (easier to draw but SUCH a loss for the unique facial animations. among other things) but i do #enjoy series that let the characters change over time so i Will aggressively hc in universe explanations for changes #also like. yeah that much of a hair color change isn’t that unrealistic i have blond friends who look almost brunette after the pandemic n s #tuff that’s just how hair works. sun exposure is also why i hc age up lloyd to have a darker band in his hair. hair is weird and complicated #and super interesting (only slightly knows what i’m talking about from my bioanth class) #also like yeah the concealer is a thing too #also also yeah i love early jay as just having got a bad haircut and overcompensating for it. it’s very Him i think

[treecakes]

and i have two bioarch assignments due tonight… killing me killing me

#never again will i go near bioanth….

[bastardbvby]

emerges from my bioanth test covered in blood and shaking ! hi !

#had to reteach myself everything to do with dna and the cell division process this morning . i am a psych girlie this is sickening #anyways don’t think i failed though so slay im getting a coffee i deserve it

[accuratepicuresofanthropologists]

Marietta Baba is the Executive Director and President of the Foundation for Women and Children Enslaved in War. Sounds like a good cause to me. She came across my google as she is also the author of a paper about W Lloyd Warner. via her website

With a background in bioanth, an MBA, it sounds like she's had an impressive and important life!

#Marietta Baba #W Lloyd Warner #anthropology #portrait

[squishious]

ok time to suffer through at least 2 bioanth lectures then eat my bun then. then sleep. then tommorow. then make someone a bday card. then catch up on arabic and do a review sheet then. then welsh take home portion. then organize the remaining of my pwll translation and start memorizing. thennnn rinse repeat bio anth

#sorry folks. accountability and shit #squish speaks

[kyidyl]

Excuse me, you're an anthropologist, correct? I want to go into forensic anthropology and was wondering if you had any good resources to look through as a sort of preliminary overview of the field.

I am, yes. Sadly, I'm not a forensic anthropologist and I really don't have a ton of info for you, especially bc I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for here. Job prospects? What the they actually do? How to become one? All of the above? I'll give you the quick and dirty of it. =D

Job Prospects: middling. There's not a ton of full-time forensic anthropologists in the world, but there are *some* and there's no reason it couldn't be you. Plus there are a number of part-time ones, and so you could do what one of my profs did and teach while also being a forensic anth.

What do they do: Forensic anthropologists are called in by the police when partial or fully decomposed human remains are found to do a few things. The first thing is determine if the remains are contemporary or historical. If they're historical they calls someone with qualifications similar to mine: Biological Archaeology, or just an archaeologist in general (especially in the US bc there are very specific laws.). If they're contemporary, then the remains are collected from it whilst treating it as a crime scene. Then the forensic anth evaluates the remains and determines things like age, sex, race, height, etc. I've mentioned this in my bones posts before, but this is done so that it's easier to match people up with the missing persons database and not because anthropologists are taught gender or race essentialism. They also look for cause of death - which is way harder than you'd think - so that the cops know if it's a murder, accident, etc. If it is murder then they often have to testify in court. They also deal with way more squishy bits than you'd think, so you need a strong stomach. They do work with coroners, but coroners aren't taught to evaluate heavily decomposed remains like forensic anthropologists are.

Becoming one: You need a bachelors in Anthropology, because most schools won't have a forensic anthropology degree. Anthropology is comprised of 4 fields: cultural, biological/physical, archaeology, and linguistics. When you get an anthropology degree in the US you learn about all 4 (which is actually very helpful even if you specialize.). Forensic is a subfield of bioanth, so when you're choosing a school, it's best to choose one that offers a lot of bioanth classes. After that, you'll need a graduate degree in forensic anthropology. Whether you need an MSc or a PHd depends on the country and you'd have to do some research there.

Anyway, hope that helps a little and if I have any forensic anth followers pls add on. ^_^